(The following article by Jesse Bogan appeared in the San Antonio Express-News on June 1. Patrick Pino is a member of BLE Division 307 in San Antonio.)
SAN ANTONIO — An engineer suffered minor injuries Saturday at a Southwest Side rail terminal when the locomotive he was in was struck by a remote-control yard locomotive, officials said.
The man, whose name was not released, was taken to Methodist Hospital in stable condition shortly after the 11:36 a.m. accident at the Union Pacific rail yard in the 1700 block of Quintana Road, near KellyUSA.
Firefighters and paramedics placed the man on a backboard and hoisted him out of the locomotive in a basket connected to an extension ladder.
San Antonio Fire Department Lt. Vance Meade described the scene as a “fender bender with a train.”
The locomotives collided at a switch, where two lines merge into one.
Mark Davis, a Union Pacific spokesman in Omaha, Neb., said the manned train, en route to Chicago from Mexico, was stopped when the other train, controlled by remote, “slightly touched it.”
Trains operated by remote control are used to sort rail cars in a yard and are operated by people on the ground.
“They are right next to it,” Davis said of the operators.
Union Pacific started using the remote technology in the United States about a year ago, drawing both criticism and awe.
Railroad executives say it’s more productive and safer.
“We’ve found that the yard accidents have decreased,” Davis said.
Though no statistics were immediately available, the Association of American Railroads reports train accident rates in Canadian rail yards have dropped since the technology was first introduced there 11 years ago.
But members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers say remote-control operations risk lives.
“It’s horrible,” said Patrick Pino, an engineer for UP who is based in San Antonio. “If you are operating with a remote-control device on the ground, you have no feel exactly of what that engine is doing.”
At least 18 U.S. cities, from Detroit to Baton Rouge to Belen, N.M., have passed resolutions to ban the use of remote-control systems.